Our next free film night takes place on Tuesday 10th July, at our usual venue:
The Fleapit, Columbia Road, London E2.

On that Tuesday we will be screening Avi Mograbi's remarkable documentary, AVENGE BUT ONE OF MY TWO EYES (NEKAM ACHAT MISHTEY EYNAY)

"Avenge but One of My Two Eyes is one of the great essayistic films of modern times" â€“ Mark Cousins

"Documentary today should be constantly immersed in questions of this magnitude and always ready to tackle them with his astounding level of eloquenceâ€”anything less is a waste"
â€“ Reverse Shot

Shot in the occupied territories, Avi Mograbi's controversial documentary film draws parallels between the Palestinian/Israeli situation today and the enduring myths of Samson and Masada. The film is a powerful and frequently chilling lament of the continuing cycles of violence rooted in the past and threatening to engulf everyone's future. With the roots of so much real-world conflict left unexamined by today's restless media, this film reminds us just how vital filmmakers like Avi Mograbi are.

Screening Details:
Tuesday 10th July â€“ Avenge but One of My Two Eyes (100 minutes)
Free entry (please buy a drink at the bar)
Film starts at 8pm

The screening of PARTITION this Sunday at the Renoir cinema (details above) has been chosen at the top critics choice in Time Out this week. That's a wonderful boost for a rarely screened film and follows our TO Critic's choice (and - believe it or not - London Lite) last week for the double bill of Third Part of the Night/Interrogation at the Riverside.

If any of you are in London this weekend please come along and make yourselves know to us.

There's a screening of Avi Mograbi's August this Sunday at the Contemporary Art Platform in North London. Well worth going if you've not seen it. It's one of Avi's more reflexive and humorous films yet all the time offering a critique of the Palestine/Israel situation.

AUGUST
by AVI MOGRABI

Sunday 19th August, 17.00

As part of RECOGNISE, there will be a drink reception with a special screening of Avi Mograbi's remarkable documentary film AUGUST on Sunday 19th August 2007 at the Contemporary Art Platform.
Introduced by Predrag Pajdic

AVI MOGRABI
AUGUST - a moment before the eruption
72 minutes, 2002

Peace Film Award - Berlin International Film Festival 2002

Avi Mograbi believes that the month of August serves as a metaphor for whatever is hateful in the state of Israel. His wife, on the other hand, is rather fond of August, which represents to her all that is optimistic. And indeed, the filmmaker goes out to the street, and on one hand loses control over what is captured by his camera. Yet, on the other hand, he miraculously tells, by his failure to accomplish his mission and document what he was after, that very story, though in a totally different way from what he planned and without being aware of it at all. At the same time, in his home, his wife is taken captive by the producer of another film. This filmmaker is involved with a film concerning the massacre of tens of praying Moslem prayers by an Israeli physician in the cave of Machpela in the occupied town of Hebron in 1994. All three characters - the filmmaker, the filmmaker's wife and the producer â€“ are played by one person: Avi Mograbi. â€œThe idea behind August was very similar to the one proposed in the film by the filmmaker's wife: to make a film that would consist solely of violence, bickering, and anger. Just that. This is Israel, wherever you go, everything is fraught with violence.â€œ Avi Mograbi

Iván Darvas passed away on June 3, 2007, at the age of 82. The two-times Kossuth Award winner actor, as well as Actor of the Nation, was one of the most popular actors in Hungary.

Iván Darvas spent more than sixty years in the profession. He received his fist role at the age of 21 in Müvész Theatre. He could play nearly all the roles actors dream of, successfully directed a film several years ago, and his graphics were repeatedly displayed at exhibitions.

He was born June 14, 1925 under the name Szilárd Darvas in Belye, Slovakia, as the second son of a Russian mother and a Hungarian father. He graduated from the Academy of Acting in 1946, then became member of Müvész Theatre, then later, in 1949, he went to Madách Theatre.
For his participation in the revolution of October, 1956 he was imprisoned for two years, and could only take up unskilled labour jobs until 1963. Then he spent a year in the theatre of Miskolc, and the next one in József Attila Theatre. His most outstanding performance as a member of the VÃ­gszÃ­nház (1965-85) was Popriscsin in the play Egy Å‘rült naplója. In 1993-95 he was member of the Müvész Theatre. In 1995 he joined the theatre of Szolnok. Darvas also took part in the political life: he was a founding member of the Commission for Historical Justice, and was an MP of the liberal party, SZDSZ, between 1990 and 1994.

A street will be named after Iván Darvas in the town of his birth, the Slovakian Beje, which once belonged to the county of Gömör. Iván Darvas was born in the village of Beje - today part of Tornalja - in the castle of the Szent-Iványi family.

After WWII the actor returned to his place of birth only in 1966, when he was shooting the movie Egy magyar nábob - Kárpáthy Zoltán in the castle of VöröskÅ‘, near Bratislava with Zoltán Várkonyi, and used the pause between shootings to travel to Beje.

The last time the actor visited Beje was in 2003 in the occasion of being awarded the honorary citizenship of Tornalja. This was the time, when the idea to name a street after him came forward, a street behind the castle garden of Beje, where the church of Mihály Tompa (who served as a pastor from 1847 to 1849) once stood. Originally Iván Darvas was to be invited to the naming ceremony, following the renovation of the street.

Our next regular free film night takes place on Tuesday 11th September, at our usual venue: The Fleapit, Columbia Road, London E2.
On that Tuesday we will be screening THE THIRD PART OF THE NIGHT, by one of the the true mavericks of European cinema, Andrzej Å»uÅ‚awski.

"Å»uÅ‚awski's first feature sets the tone for the rest of his career, walking a perpetual tightrope between the hallucinatory and the hysterical" Sight&Sound

THE THIRD PART OF THE NIGHT (Trzecia cz___ nocy) is his highly influential and award-winning debut feature. A nightmarish and surreal masterpiece, it is considered one of the best Polish films of the 1970s. Set during the Nazi-occupation of Poland, the film deals with the guilt and experiences of a young man who has narrowly escaped the massacre in which his family has been annihilated. Rich with multilayered symbolism and apocalyptic imagery, it shows one of Europe's most uncompromising and visionary directors at his best.

Second Run DVDs release of THE THIRD PART OF THE NIGHT will be the first-ever DVD release of the film anywhere in the world.

Screening Details:
Tuesday 11th September â€“ THE THIRD PART OF THE NIGHT (102 minutes)
Free entry (please buy a drink at the bar)
Film starts promptly at 8pm

A Long Weekend in Pest and Buda reunites Károly Makk with Mari TörÃµcsik and Iván Darvas, who starred in his classic film Love, which was made over 30 years ago. With them, Makk recreates that finely tuned sense of place, history, and intimate human stories that characterize his best films, showing a director still working at the height of his talent. Emotionally mature and profoundly moving, the film reveals how, despite our best efforts, we can never quite escape the past.

Screening Details:
Tuesday 9th October â€“ A LONG WEEKEND IN PEST AND BUDA (86 minutes)
Free entry (please buy a drink at the bar)
Film starts promptly at 8pm

From Second Run's latest newsletter, cryptic clues about their forthcoming titles:

Quote:

The definitive release of a cult-classic, made in Czechoslovakia in 1970. Drawing inspiration from fairy tales, the myth of vampires, early cinema and surrealism and also throwing liberal doses of sex, coming-of-age and religion into the mix, this film is a singularly original achievement.

An account of life in contemporary urban China, which eschews period rural drama and is in stark and brutal contrast to the work made by Fifth Generation directors at that time. Made in 1990 and an important landmark in Chinese cinema.

A film of two halves (!), from South-East Asia, by a contemporary filmmaker whose work we just love in bounds. It becomes the second film of his that we will have released and, although already released in other territories, we could not leave such a wonderful film unreleased in the UK and will include special extras to make it unique.

A number of films from contemporary British documentary filmmakers, who are amongst the best in the world but whose work has remained unreleased on DVD. We aim to correct that through the year.

I actually know what most of these are already, so I'd be cheating, but feel free to have a guess. (Or a statement of the blindingly obvious in the case of the first one - I'm not sure the word "cryptic" really applies here!)

[quote]The definitive release of a cult-classic, made in Czechoslovakia in 1970. Drawing inspiration from fairy tales, the myth of vampires, early cinema and surrealism and also throwing liberal doses of sex, coming-of-age and religion into the mix, this film is a singularly original achievement.

Michael- Just read your comments on the Kino thread and wondered what were the chances of having the Valerie Project track on the Second Run release?? Would it be likely to be cost prohibitive? Could it not be encoded NTSC region 0 like some of the(I think) MoC releases??

Also any hints on who /what the allusion to British documentaries is all about?? Any chance of it including the Psycho-geography crowd ? Keiller/Sinclair/ Petit et al

the Valerie Project album is licensed to the UK for CD release already, if it was only out here on Drag City I could see it being licensed but if they put the track on the DVD, most consumers wouldn't even bother to buy the album. Don't hold your breath.

...and this is quite apart from the PAL speedup issues - and I think I can predict with reasonable certainty that Second Run's DVD will be PAL, given that a pretty good transfer is already available in the Czech Republic.

This is educated guesswork, but I suspect it's highly likely that they'll be using the Bonton transfer. Not only is it so much better than the Facets or Redemption prints that there's no comparison, but I suspect Second Run would have cleared the rights directly with Bonton in Prague and therefore it would be the obvious master to supply. In fact, they probably don't have another Digibeta master!

The PAL speedup issues with the Valerie Project soundtrack are more complex than just increasing the speed to 25fps, because the CD includes an introductory track to be played as a prelude - and that segues seamlessly into the opening music, so you can't just drop it altogether.

One of these days I'm going to try ripping the Czech transfer and speeding the CD up with Soundtrack Pro, but what's put me off so far is that calculating the exact speed increase will be trial and error, and processing an entire feature film soundtrack will take hours. The biggest problem is the lack of any obvious sync points - I'm sure there are some, but they aren't at the beginning, where it really matters!

(And I also suspect that music rights clearance will be way outside Second Run's budget - especially given that it's out on CD in Britain and the CD rightsholders will presumably want a sum that's worth their while)

Zazou dans le Metro wrote:

Also any hints on who /what the allusion to British documentaries is all about?? Any chance of it including the Psycho-geography crowd ? Keiller/Sinclair/ Petit et al

Keiller's films (or at least the first two features; the third is currently undistributable for copyright reasons) are already available on DVD - so you can probably rule him out.

As for your other suggestions, I'm only aware of one definite name (which I won't reveal until Second Run decide to do it themselves), but the announcement hinted at more than one filmmaker, so that's hardly conclusive.

Last edited by MichaelB on Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bear in mind that the contrast boosting may well have been added at the authoring stage, so the Digibeta master may look absolutely fine.

(And of course it's total guesswork as to whether Second Run are using that master in the first place, but the chances must be pretty high. It definitely won't be the Facets or Redemption masters, though - of that I really can be absolutely certain!)

Any chance of it including the Psycho-geography crowd ? Sinclair/ Petit et al

Gosh yes! It would be great to see The Falconer (especially with that recent Peter Whitehead DVD coming out from the BFI) or Asylum get a release. Maybe they could even get that Manny Farber documentary, Negative Space?

I also assume the third is a Apichatpong Weerasethakul film. Tropical Malady perhaps?

That or Syndromes and a Century, but that hasn't really been released in "other territories" (just the R1 release from Strand). Another poster heard rumors of a Second Run Tropical Malady and I'll take this as confirmation. (I hope he's right about the short films -- I'd love an excuse to triple-dip on this.)

Quote:

No idea on the second!

Maybe Bumming in Beijing, one of those historically significant films that's better known by reputation than anything else. Zhang Yuan's Mama would be my second guess.

I was thinking Beijing Bastards, which was one of the earliest independent films in China. But just checked and Bastards was released in 1993, and the clue specified 1990.

My guess was Xiaoshuai Wang's exquisite The Days (what a release that would be!), but that's also a couple of years out if imdb is correct. However, year of filming (Second Run's clue) and year of release are not the same thing, especially with semi-covert projects like these.

Another guess would be Fei Xie's Black Snow (Ben ming nian). I haven't seen it, but it fits the description.

Remind me NEVER to compete against any of you in a Film Quiz team!

Teacher to Chen Kiage, Jia Zhangke and Zhang Yimou, director Xie Fei has been a Professor at the Beijing Film Academy for very many years.
We hope you will discover a remarkable film. With a great central performance by Jiang Wen.

You're fucking kidding me. This is great news. I watched a terrible copy of this in a film class a decade ago, and never forgot it. Fei's debut film, THE GIRL FROM HUNAN, is also well worth watching. After having given us PALMS last year, and now BLACK SNOW this year, I am more thankful to Second Run than ever. And now, having groveled suitably, maybe Bikey can shed some insight on this tidbit I found online:

Quote:

One of the legacies of Cinema China may be the fact that screenings of this and Xie’s other exploration of the fate of individuals during a period of vast social transition, The Woman from the Lake of Scented Souls, both screened on jaw-dropping digital prints taken from restored 35mm masters, have resulted in an impending release on the Second Run label.

So is WOMAN... now on the schedule as well? I've been tempted to buy it for years, but apparently the Facets release is typically substandard.